


Naked

by rikyl



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Episode: Camping, F/M, Season 3, this here is some sappy tent-sharing fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10610760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikyl/pseuds/rikyl
Summary: A Camping AU in which they actually camp, and of course Ben ends up in Leslie's tent, because of course.Originally written for the old NBC kink meme on LJ.





	

Ben shifted uncomfortably in his sleeping bag, feeling the cold uneven earth through the cheap fabric and wishing he hadn’t skimped on camping supplies. He hadn’t realized the night was going to get this cold, or that there were going to be this many rocks and sticks and other weird pokey things on the floor. The ground. Whatever.

It didn’t really matter, because he probably wasn’t going to be getting much sleep tonight regardless. He was worried about Leslie, and he kept going over their conversation, thinking of different and better things he should have said. He had her alone in front of a beautiful sunset, reaching out to him for support, and this wasn’t how it should have gone. Some hours ago, he would have put failure to kiss her, yet again, at the top of that list of regrets, but at this point, he simply would have settled for not having let her down.

They’d only known each other for a short time, and already she had been there for him on multiple occasions. She’d helped him get through his weird media meltdown. Then he’d pretty much abandoned her during the Harvest Festival, and she not only instantly forgave him, but she made him feel pretty much the opposite of cursed. He felt needed, wanted. God, she just had this way of making him feel good, even when he was being a total screwup. And the one time she asked for his support, he’d just repaid her by putting all that pressure on her.

She was human, of course—it just hadn’t occurred to him, she had always just seemed so effortlessly impressive. It was nice, actually, to know she wasn’t perfect, that she worried about stuff and that she needed reassurance sometimes. He could relate to that. And he wanted to be there for her, like she had been there for him. He was just kicking himself for not realizing sooner what was going on.

When he unclenched his eyelids and looked around, Ben noticed the rest of the campground had settled down, and the last of the lights had gone off except for the one in Leslie’s tent. He wondered if she was still awake, still jotting ideas in her notebook and stressing about getting it right.

Maybe he should go to her. Could he do that? She was basically in bed, and he was a friend, sure, but a work friend, and … all right, there did seem to be a weird vibe to the relationship that was more familiar than work or friend, but he wasn’t sure how much of that was in his head, or just the way that Leslie was with everyone. Either way, secret handshakes and shared pudding cups didn’t exactly entitle him to barge into her private tent in the middle of the night.

Then again, Tom had a point, asking him what he was even still doing here, and he was running out of time to connect with her. And she needed him anyway—well, maybe not him exactly, that seemed kind of presumptuous—but help from someone, and he was the one able to offer that right now, and … well, he was pretty sure he wasn’t sleeping tonight anyway. He crawled out of the uncomfortable sleeping bag, threw his button-up over his undershirt, and headed over to her tent.

When he got there, he crouched down next to the zipper flap and paused, unsure what to do. It hadn’t occurred to him that you can’t really knock on a tent flap. While he was running through the options in his head—tapping the fabric? calling to her? retreating?—he heard her stir inside, and suddenly she was there, unzipping the door, catching him off guard.

“Ben, hi,” she whispered, looking around at the otherwise still campground. “I heard footsteps. I guess that was you.”

“Hey, hi, um, I was having trouble sleeping, and I noticed your light on,” he whispered nervously.

“Oh, yeah, I was just …” she trailed off, but the slightly crazed gleam in her eyes suggested the sentence may have ended with something along the lines of “quietly freaking out” or “having a nervous breakdown.”

“Do you need some help? We could bounce some ideas around.”

She smiled at him, and he was so relieved that she actually seemed happy to see him. She didn’t seem to think this was weird at all.

“Yeah, thanks, that would be really nice actually,” she said, unzipping the flap the rest of the way and moving aside to let him in, then closing it up behind them.

The floor—he could call it that, inside the tent, right?—was littered with papers and notebooks and binders, so he stepped gingerly over them and took a seat on the edge of her bed. She sat down a good foot away, but the air mattress sagged a little, and their shoulders bumped. He unthinkingly put an arm up around her as they steadied themselves, and their eyes met for a moment, and all he really wanted to do was to wrap her up in a hug and tell her it was all going to be okay.

He didn’t feel like he had gotten there with her yet, though. Instead he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and withdrew, shifting to face her.

“Look …” he started softly. “I just … I want to apologize for earlier. I shouldn’t have put all that pressure on you. It wasn’t helpful.”

She turned her eyes away from him, looking a little stressed and manic again. “It’s not your fault. I just want to get this right. I don’t want to let anyone down.”

“You could never let anyone down,” he said without thinking, then winced into his hand when he realized he was doing it again; next he was going to be comparing her to Batgirl or Rainbow Brite or something else totally ridiculous. “God, sorry, I keep saying the wrong thing. I suck at this.”

“It’s okay,” she said, with a twitch of a smile. “You’re trying, and that’s nice.” She reached over and squeezed his hand, and he didn’t know if it was a friendship squeeze or what, but it was all the encouragement he needed to hold on and forge ahead.

“Leslie, you know whatever happens now, you impressed a lot of people, and that’s not just going to go away. And you will have ideas, maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but you will, probably tons of them for the rest of your life, because you’re hardworking and creative, and that’s what happens for hardworking, creative people. Everyone has moments of doubt. Believe me, I know.” He gestured a bit to indicate the precise depth of his own moments of doubt, which were quite epic. “But it’ll happen for you, and it will be okay.”

She smiled at him again, but this time there was more behind it, and he felt like he was getting through to her, like she believed him this time. He was still clasping her hand and noticed it was hardly platonic hand-holding (was there such a thing?) anymore, but she wasn’t pulling away either. If anything she was moving closer.

“You really think all that?” She was looking at him kind of intensely, like his opinion really mattered to her.

“Absolutely. Look … regardless of what happens, you’re still you, and I think you’re amazing.” He looked down at their twined fingers, feeling shy and exposed all the sudden, realizing that without quite meaning to he’d shifted from reassuring her to pretty much confessing his feelings. But it felt right, so he pressed on. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a while, and this wasn’t exactly how I envisioned this happening, but you are, and you should know that. And ... it's not just what you do, it's your kindness and your passion and ... all of it. Just the way that you are. Tonight included."

She dropped his hand just then, and he had a panicky moment of thinking she might be rejecting him, but just as quickly she looped her arms around him and pulled him in for a hug. It was only the second time she had ever hugged him, but she didn’t disconnect so quickly this time, and it turned into an all-out embrace, with arms clutching and torsos pressed together and her face nestled against his shoulder.

She felt so good in his arms, and he squeezed her back, not wanting to let go, and the emotions flooding through him were enough to put a lump in his throat. He had the odd thought that they might never have quite gotten to this particular moment if they hadn’t both fallen against each other in their weaker moments. And he was absurdly grateful to her just then for her imperfections, and for his own even, for being the things that brought them closer and gave them the opportunity to be more to each other.

Just as he was wondering if she felt any of that, she tipped her head back, looking up at him with this sweet earnest expression that he’d never seen before. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You don’t suck, you’re perfect. I mean, that was perfect. That was what I needed to hear.”

“Good, I’m glad,” he whispered, his voice raspy. They locked eyes, and he really, really wanted to kiss her, in a way that made it hard to breathe, but he also didn’t want to let her down again. “You know, I really did intend to help you brainstorm, if that’s what you still want to do. I’m here to help.”

Without breaking his gaze, she shook her head. “It doesn’t seem important right now.”

As if to signal with a little more certainty what she did want, she shifted her legs across his lap, putting her arms around his neck—which was wonderful for about half a second before the air mattress yielded under the changing distribution of weight, and she lost her balance and toppled over backwards.

She landed in a heap, and he let himself fall down next to her, and they just giggled quietly for a few moments at the ridiculousness of it, or something. Whatever, he didn’t even really understand what they were laughing at, but the tension was broken, and he felt giddy and relieved and more relaxed than he’d ever felt around her.

“So this is camping,” Ben mock-complained, just to have something to say.

She beamed over at him. “Ben is not a happy camper,” she teased, giggling again. “Why aren’t you a happy camper?”

He almost laughed it off too, but something made him want to open up to her, to make sure she understood why he was the way he was sometimes. “It’s not so much that I’m opposed to camping or the outdoors or anything, and I think I could even come around to it,” he explained, thinking really, the idea of him and Leslie in a tent in the woods seemed pretty appealing, minus the entire parks department. “It’s just being unprepared, not having any of the right stuff, still feeling like a bit of an outsider, just generally feeling out of my element. It all just makes me …”

“Snarky?”

He laughed self-consciously. “Yeah. Sorry.”

She rolled over on her side to face him and smiled with something that resembled genuine affection. “It’s okay. I get it.”

He shifted onto his side to face her. “Plus the ground out there is really hard and cold. This … this is nice, though.” It really was. She still had her hair up in those cute little pony tails, her pink flannel shirt open over a tank top, and she just looked so sweet and approachable. It was kind of a weird word to think about someone you’re basically in bed with, but this soft, vulnerable side of her was what was making him feel like he belonged here with her.

“It is nice. Really nice,” she agreed sincerely, reaching out to brush her fingers tentatively along his upper arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”

It was the same thing she had said to him at Harvest Festival, but this time her voice broke a little, and the way she was looking at him, he felt like she meant it, in a way that surpassed coworker or even friend. And in that moment, he felt like Rudolph finding out that Clarice thinks he’s cute, except that instead of taking off in flight for the first time—

He leaned in and kissed her.

And it was kind of like flying, the way his stomach sort of fell out of place, and everything else in the world receded, and he just lost himself in the feel of her soft lips against his. His fingers rested against the back of her neck, and she curled her hand around his shoulder.

It was the perfect first kiss, tentative and gentle and sweet. And that might have been all it was—a beginning, something to build on later—except that as they both moved toward each other, the flimsy air mattress sagged in the middle, propelling them even closer. It caved under them, and puffed up behind them, until the full lengths of their bodies were pressed together.

And suddenly it felt less like a first kiss and more like … foreplay.

The kiss broke as they smiled against each other’s mouths.

“This bed …” Ben began, feeling a little embarrassed and uncertain about the turn this was taking, and how it might appear to Leslie.

“I think it’s trying to play matchmaker,” Leslie giggled, pulling him back in and kissing him deeply.

As always, her enthusiasm was contagious. So he went with it, enjoying the feel of her curves against him, starting to let his hand roam over her body, lingering at the magnificent spot where her hip dipped into the curve of her waist. Her tank top was riding up just enough that he could feel the smooth skin over the top of her hipbone, and his fingers worked their way under the fabric and around to the small of her back.

Leslie sighed against him and started kissing him with increasing intensity, her hands rubbing up and down his back then ending up in his hair. They were pressed into each other so closely already, but she seemed to be trying to hold him even closer. Then she hooked a knee up over his leg, and he was suddenly very conscious of his arousal and the fact that she could almost certainly feel its evidence against her.

Part of him—most of him—wanted very much to continue down this path they seemed to be on, the one that seemed to be leading very quickly to removal of clothing. And the thought of her naked body under his—

But there was this other part, a nagging voice in the back of his head, that was still reeling from the idea that he was here, that she might really be into him, and wondering if this was all happening too fast, and not entirely sure what it meant to her.

And then there was the fact that they were in a damned tent, with the entire parks department within a stone’s throw.

He broke the kiss, pulling back slightly, a question in his eyes but not quite formed out loud yet.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice a little groggy sounding.

“Nothing, it’s just … this isn’t how I pictured this … know what I mean?” It seemed like such an inadequate way to express all of what was going through his head right now, but it was the most he could manage at the moment.

She looked a little amused, and he felt the heat rising in his face. “You pictured this?”

Oh god, he didn’t need her to know that he had fantasized about her obsessively for months. “Just … let’s just say … ideally I thought it would be in a bed, I mean, with a real mattress, and walls around us, and no campers sleeping nearby. … And, you know, I would have taken you out a few times beforehand …”

He smiled weakly at her, having the sudden horrible insecure thought that maybe she was just stressed out, and this, whatever was happening, wasn’t about him at all.

The thing was, he wanted to be something to her tomorrow. Maybe this wasn’t the right way for something to happen?

Still holding him really close, she answered him by kissing him on the mouth, quickly, then pulled back and studied him. “You’re really something, you know that?”

“I … don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t know what I mean either. But I think it’s good. I have a really good feeling about this.”

“You do?”

“God, you’re cute,” she breathed out, kissing him lightly again on the lips like she just couldn’t stay away, and it was that tiny detail of all things that made him feel more confident. “How about we make a deal? You stay in my tent tonight, and you can take me out soon, and we’ll just pretend we did it the other way around.”

He grinned at her. “That … yeah, that does sound good. Okay. Er, deal.” Then he remembered where they were and shot a significant look over at the tent flap. “What about …?”

“The thing about air mattresses,” she said, raising her eyebrows in this really cute knowing way, “is that they don’t have squeaky springs. So … as long as you can keep from yelling my name out …”

He laughed softly, rolling his eyes. “The bigger question is, can you keep from yelling my name out?”

“I make no promises,” she whispered next to his ear, and his stomach flipped over at the feel of her breath and the thought of her saying his name with any level of feeling at all. She reached over to flick the lantern off, and he felt the momentary loss of her sharply, but then she was back in his arms, fitting against him in a way that made him feel like she belonged there.

Feeling bolder, he started kissing her with all the passion he felt, and touching her in the places he wanted to touch her: from her hip, up her side, to the curve of her breast, down her back, almost everywhere at once, as he couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

When he started to push her flannel off her shoulders, she sat up to shrug out of it and the tank top, pulling him up with her to take his shirt off too. Then she straddled his lap, tracing the line of his ribcage while he kissed down her neck.

“Leslie,” he murmured reflexively against her collarbone, in utter awe of how beautiful she was.

“Ben,” she sighed back, before gently pushing him onto his back and moving to cover him. As she kissed him and wriggled her warm, topless body over his, he felt a wave of desire so intense, he doubted he’d ever wanted anyone or anything as much as he wanted her.

He undid the clasp of her bra, and she shifted momentarily to remove it. When she came back down to him, he used his hands on her side to shift her upward, guiding her breast down to his mouth. She gasped loudly.

“Shhhh,” he murmured against her, exploring the soft mound of her flesh with his tongue, enjoying the quickening sound of her breathing.

When he brought his mouth back to hers again, the kisses were wetter and hungrier. She started grinding her lower body against him so that now he was the one struggling to control his breathing and stay quiet.

When he felt like he couldn’t stand it anymore, he placed his hands firmly on her sides and rolled them over so that he was on top, finding her mouth again while they both fumbled with each other’s zippers, until suddenly a thought stopped him short.

“Oh god … what about …?”

Leslie was still for a moment until she figured out what he was getting at, then let out a frustrated-sounding sigh and put two hands on his chest to gently push him away from her.

Ben slumped aside, never having felt so disappointed in his life than in that moment of thinking that he’d once again come up short and let her down for not planning ahead—and simultaneously feeling confused by the possibility that she would hold something like that against him and call the whole thing off. And really just wanting her to come back to him, even if they couldn’t go as far as they wanted.

But she was already rummaging through a bag and climbing back into bed, and she pressed something into his hand that felt like … a condom wrapper.

Seriously, she packed protection on a camping trip? “You … really?”

She laid back down with him, close enough that he could make out her expression in the darkness, and she looked strangely vulnerable and girlish. “I thought … I might … you never know … anyway, why are you still wearing pants?”

He broke into a grin suddenly, at the realization that she had even higher hopes for this camping trip than he had dared to have, and he was pretty sure she hadn’t had her eye on Ron or Tom for that condom. So …

“Come here,” he whispered, and she scooted toward him again, and it crossed his mind that for as many ways as this could have gotten derailed tonight, it hadn’t. It was still happening, in spite of her stress, and his insecurities, and the awkwardness of being so new, and the question of protection, and the stupid mattress. And somehow, it was still perfect. Because it was Leslie, and it was just … well, it wasn’t exactly easy, but it was … he just had this feeling that even if everything possible went wrong, it was still going to be all right, because it was her, and them, and …

While this mess of thoughts and feelings was rushing through him, she was already back to work on removing his pants and scooting out of her own, until abruptly they were almost naked together.

She seemed to be ready for the next step, and as much as he was too, he couldn’t help pausing to take her in and savor the moment. He brushed some stray strands of yellow hair aside and traced his fingers down the side of her face, then kissed her gently, letting his body hover over hers. As if they were just beginning again.

Being with her felt so good, so right, he wondered if he might even already be in love with her. 

“Ben,” she breathed against his mouth like a plea, and finally he gave in, removing the last layers of fabric between them, and lowered himself down between her legs.

“Leslie,” he sighed, feeling like he was saying so much just by saying her name. And then he sank into her warmth, felt her body tighten around him, and lost all capacity for coherent thought. It took all of his focus on concentration not to just lose it immediately, so for a long moment he just savored being inside her, the sound of her breathing, the way she was clutching at him.

As he started to move inside her slowly, her arms and legs constricted around him, and they were finally as close as they had been trying to get all night—maybe longer than that, since he’d been craving this for so long, not the sex exactly, but the intimacy with her. It was as naked and whole as he’d ever felt.

She moved her hips up to meet him with every thrust, bringing him deeper inside her, and he couldn’t stop alternately kissing her sloppily and saying her name breathlessly against her neck. If she didn’t already have some idea of how he felt about her, he felt pretty certain that she knew now.

As much as he wanted this feeling to last forever, she was too much, and the heat was already building, making him feel like he was going to explode at any time. He shifted his weight onto one arm and slid the other hand down between them, trying to find her clit, hoping that he could help her climax before it was over.

But before he could really find a rhythm there, he felt himself losing control, and he couldn’t hold back, couldn’t hold back, he was coming inside her. And it was amazing and terrifying at the same time, because it was over too quickly, and he wasn’t sure if she was there with him.

Then it was done, and he was collapsing in a sweaty mess beside her. “God, I’m so sorry, I can do better than that, I swear,” he babbled, pressing his face into her shoulder, feeling the rise and fall of her as she caught her breath.

“Shhhh …” Leslie murmured. “Ben.” She had her arm around him and she put her hand up in his hair, gently stroking the back of his head until he finally forced himself to look up at her. “It was perfect,” she said with sweet sincerity. “I mean, you’re perfect.”

She smiled down at him and dropped a kiss on his forehead, pulling him in closer.

And that was that: he loved her. He snuggled against her, knowing he’d be asleep in minutes, not even caring who would know the next morning that he’d spent the night with her.

He loved her, and that was all that mattered.


End file.
